ABSTRACT
Exile, as a condition and an experience, describes the geographical, aesthetic and emotional distance of an individual from home. It also expresses the individual's relation to the idea of home. As such it evokes feelings of both punishment and liberation. In the works of Kazimierz Brandys and Brian Moore the experience of exile appears both as punishment, as exclusion from home, and as liberation, an escape from mundanity and the perils of home. Both Brandys and Brendan represent the figure of an aesthetic exile: they leave their homeland in search of freedom of artistic expression, and make their writing a moveable home. The liberating and punitive aspects of exile are also expressed in the relationship between the past and the present versions of home. The correspondence between the exilic predicament of Brandys and Moore's characters is also manifested through the images of the city of home and the city of exile.
